Waltham Brooks

My first trip to Waltham Brooks for a while was a pleasant one, beginning with good numbers of ducks on the water and Sand Martins feeding over, on what was a fine, but windy, evening.

Waltham Brooks

Whilst scanning a hedge trying identify a calling Willowchaff I found a Lesser Whitethroat, lovely clean-white and grey. A flock of Swallows sailed over, and a flock of gulls, all juveniles, were heading northwest, but were unidentifiable to me (I would guess Herring Gulls). With nothing but a lone Moorhen on the canal I headed up to the railway foot-crossing, noticing a hovering Kestrel and a few Whitethroat en route, and I just about made out a Cetti’s Warbler singing briefly, muffled by the wind.

Whitethroat

As I approached the treatment works 2 Buzzards were calling and sparring over the woodland to the south where I’d seen Buzzards regularly during spring, and I assume they’ve bred there. A single Grey Wagtail was on one of the clarifiers in the treatment works; evidently a favoured locations for Wagtails having seen a family of both Grey and Pied Wagtails on the clarifiers in the Hurston Lane treatment works recently. 

Heading back to the car a Stonechat was now perched up on the scrub. 

Stonechat